Reputation tour running on empty
It’s an old, but almost flawlessly effective, musicindustry strategy: if the record sales numbers are slumping, send the band out on tour. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, while not among the noteworthy song-peddling Justins (Bieber, Timberlake, American Idol’s long-forgotten Guarini et al.), is employing a very similar strategy in hopes that the dawning days of 2018 will earn him more favourable reviews than the disastrous end of 2017.
Battered through much of last year by a near-perfect storm of controversies — including the much-reviled Omar Khadr settlement, a roundly criticized trade jaunt to China, the outcry over proposed business tax changes, NATFA tensions, a damning ethics commissioner’s report on his interest-conflicted dealings with the Aga Khan, and Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s various personal wealth complications - the prime minister was most eager to reset the rhythm of his majority-government band.
To that end, he has, as the Grateful Dead so often did, taken the act on the road.
Mr. Trudeau’s ongoing series of town hall discussions, allegedly aimed at allowing average Canadians up-close access to the prime minister, is both a stroke of strategic image-burnishing brilliance and a deeply cynical enterprise. By wading into the public spaces fray, with shirt sleeves rolled and no filters on town-hallers’ questions, he is employing his considerable skills as a scrappy, smarttalking politician to turn these events into opportunities to re-establish himself as a man of the people rather than an out-of-touch, Ottawa-ensconced upper-cruster with wealthy friends, wealthy cabinet colleagues and an agenda that favours... you guessed it... the wealthy.
Unscripted events are risky business for politicians, but what is clear as this tour rolls on is that Mr. Trudeau is, beyond any shadowed doubt, very good at this sort of thing. He endures shouted taunts and welcomes pointed questions, responding calmly with impromptu-but-polished answers that keep awkward, protester punctuated moments from turning into lose-the-room unravellings. The prime minister fares much better in front of a cheering, energetic crowd that appreciates and applauds his deft turns of phrase and rapier-quick rejoinders than he does when answering questions about personal conflicts and legislative missteps in the heat of Ottawa’s media glare.
“Getting out and meeting with Canadians across the country, doing open town halls where Canadians get to ask me any question they want and hold their elected representatives to account is at the heart of what a democracy should be,” Mr. Trudeau said before embarking on the road trip.
“That is exactly why I am so excited to be getting out of the Ottawa bubble.”
While it’s true that elected representatives should be held to account, such accountability is not brought to bear in raucous public rallies where questions flow from mostly friendly crowds and answers tend not to be burdened by consequences.
Accountability resides in the legislative and, if necessary, judicial process. It will be waiting for Mr. Trudeau when he returns to the bubble.
Until then, however, the road show jangles along. Mr. Trudeau will roll up the sleeves of a new shirt in each stop along the way and take the stage with confidence and a sense of applause-abetted relief. But the tour will end, as they all must, and the prime minister will be forced to refocus on the less-glamourous task of recasting his political record.
It won’t be easy. For Mr. Trudeau, 2017 wasn’t exactly a chart-topper.